Gamification and simulation software company KNOLSKAPE on Friday announced raising Series-A funding of an undisclosed amount from US-India venture firm Inventus Capital Partners and human resources-focussed fund The HR Fund. The funds raised will help the company for international expansion, product innovation and building global partnerships.

The team at KNOLSKAPE

Founded in 2008, the startup is the brainchild of Rajiv Jayaraman, who wanted to bring about a perfect combination of technology and creativity. At present, KNOLSKAPE creates software simulations and experiential learning products to help organisations on-board, train, assess and engage talent using its wide portfolio of experiential learning products.​

Considered to be one of the top 20 IT learning gamification companies, the venture has presence in Singapore and India, with more than 125 clients across the globe. It also works with global Fortune 500 companies and Top-10 B-schools (including Kellogg, Indian School of Business and S P Jain), as well as leading HR consulting/training companies.

Today with the increase in millennial population in corporates, there is a huge challenge to engage the workforce. Moreover, with the millennial generation set to occupy half of the global workforce (by 2020), HR has realised an immediate need for engaging youngsters. Thus, 'microlearning' or bite-sized lessons in the form of games are a new trend catching up in India.

Apart from the capital, Inventus Capital will also help KNOLSKAPE scale up globally while The HR Fund will bring its domain global expertise to the table.

Utkarsh Joshi, Principal, The HR Fund, said,

Global corporations have been using gamification solutions in areas such as customer engagement, loyalty programmes, sales, and are extending it to their internal operations and employees. In India, adoption is often hindered by conventionally ingrained attitudes towards use of such tools at the workplace. But of late, gamification is being adopted by various corporates to engage the younger workforce.

The market

According to Gartner, the global market for Gamification solutions will be roughly at $5.5 billion by end-2018. Another report from MarketsandMarkets forecasts the global gamification market to grow from $1.65 billion in 2015 to $11.10 billion by 2020, growing at CAGR of 46.3 percent.

Moreover, social media is considered to be the real force driving the growth of this segment. Further, Asia-Pacific (APAC) is expected to become one of the major adopters of gamification techniques by 2020.

In the Indian market, there are a couple of players functioning in this space, including names like MindTickle, Playlyfe, eMee, as well as Ptotem Learning Projects LLP.

However, this isn’t the first funding in the space. In November last year, MindTickle, having clients like Olacabs, Nutanix, Cloudera, AppDynamics and Qualtrics had raised a Series-A funding of $12.5 million from NEA and Accel Partners.

Being still nascent, this sector has a huge opportunity to grow, considering the market size for the application of their technology.